


Trick or Treat

by tristesses



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan)
Genre: F/F, Genderswap, Other, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-04
Updated: 2012-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-28 21:26:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/312341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tristesses/pseuds/tristesses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joker educates the always-curious Crane on the history of Halloween; a few things get destroyed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trick or Treat

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on 10/25/2008.

October in Gotham is dry and cold; it’s a season of nosebleeds, short tempers, and cracked skin. Although Dr. Crane does not fuss much over her appearance, she takes the time to rub lotion into her skin, and Vaseline to her lips and nose; even a drop or two of errant blood mixing with her chemicals would render them useless, and possibly cause something more destructive than she would like, such as an explosion. Her partner, of course, would probably appreciate that. So what if their lab caught fire and burnt with them inside it? It wouldn’t matter, it’d be fun, to see the test tubes sparking fierce blues and greens as all their hard work exploded around them; it’d be devastating and beautiful, and when it was all over Joker would emerge unscathed from the wreckage (she always does) and make some dastardly little quip about not playing with your chemistry set without parental supervision – and Crane, if she survived, would be standing on the sidelines, wrapped in a tattered jacket and seething, plotting elaborate schemes to take her revenge on Joker which she’ll never complete. She never has.

Crane delicately pours the fear toxin from one beaker to another; she and Joker have been attempting to wed their two poisons into something far deadlier. Going by the common laws of science, it’s impossible – Joker’s toxin is far too volatile to risk mixing with another – but Crane will attempt it anyway, in the quest for knowledge. Their complete disregard for their own personal safety, despite their wildly differing reasons, is one of the few things she and Joker have in common.

Her hands are freezing; the wind eats through the aluminum siding in this desiccated warehouse and drops the temperature to alarming lows, despite the rudimentary stove she’s constructed in the corner. Time for gloves. She can’t handle the chemicals with numb hands, after all. They’re not in the drawer where she usually puts them, though, or any of the other drawers, which is mildly dismaying, and as she searches, slapping her hands together in an attempt to keep circulation flowing, a sense of annoyance is oozing through her veins. Where the fuck are her gloves?

The door slams open, which makes her start visibly, but it’s not the police, only Joker. Crane turns to face her with a scowl; her warm woolen gloves are on Joker’s hands, her overlong nails poking through the fabric.

“Trick or treat, Scarecrow,” Joker greets. She has a medical bag slung over her shoulder. “What’ll it be?”

“Very funny,” Crane says dryly, and stalks forward like an insulted cat. “I take it you have the ingredients?”

“ _So_ brusque,” Joker croons. “Anyone would almost assume you don’t care about me.”

“Shocking, that.” As irritating as Joker can be, she’s very intelligent, perhaps more so than anyone Crane’s ever met; the chemicals are exactly what she was looking for, excellent quality, probably stolen from some medical facility or another. Maybe Arkham, Joker’s good at getting in and out of there.

“Ah, Halloween,” Joker sighs, “festival of the _dead_. Created in place of Samhain, did you know that?”

“Yes.”

“Of _course_ you did. Scarecrow. With your straw-colored hair. I wonder…did they call you a witch, Scary?”

“What?” Crane looks over her shoulder in bemusement; Joker is lolling on a ratty couch, close to the makeshift stove, still wearing Crane’s gloves.

“Down in Geor- _juh_.” Joker affects a southern drawl, stretching out her words ludicrously. “Did the local schoolkids call you a witch at Halloween? All alone in your big, dark house…with only your creepy granny for company. And the _bats_ in the _belfry_. Don’t forget them! Bats eating the bloody rat guts from your dress – ”

“How do you know about that?” Crane asks. Anger is clogging her throat, she wants to toss a beaker of acid in Joker’s painted face. Her hands are trembling. She tells herself it’s from the cold.

“It doesn’t matter, Scary. The schoolkids, the bats, your mean, mean teachers…punishing you when you know more than them. Nothing. Matters. Puts things in a little per _spec_ tive, doesn’t it?”

“It was crows anyway,” Crane murmurs, busying herself with science. Chemistry. That makes sense to her, not what Joker says.

“What?”

Crane clears her throat, but doesn’t turn to face Joker again. “It was crows in the belfry. Not bats.”

“Hmm.” A pause. “Seems like I’ve got bats on the brain, Scary.”

Wisely, Crane chooses not to comment.

Joker is silent, for a long, long while, except for the wet squelching of her gnawing on her scars. It’s a little disgusting, but Crane is excellent at blocking things out.

The two of them are a study in contrasts: Crane is overly lanky, unfeminine and bony, reserved and full of hate, anger, and negativity. Her weapon is her mind, which she can use to great effect; her greatest feat was driving a sane man mad in three sessions. (He commited a murder-suicide after the third.) Joker, though, is clad in bright Mardi Gras colors and garish facepaint, accentuating her scars and the hollows of her eyes and cheeks; she is short, at least compared to Crane, and strong, wielding knives and guns and fire with impunity and glee. She’s the sort of person who brings the phrase “playing with fire” into stark reality. Perhaps Crane envies her, a little, and wants her just a little, too. But of course, she’s smarter than that. The incident with the chair has not been forgotten; she had to bandage her broken ribs herself. Joker is too dangerous to be considered as anything more than a wary business partner.

“Samhain’s a pagan holiday,” Joker says into her ear – she’s a loud person in every sense of the word, but she’s disconcertingly good at sneaking around and making Crane jump. “Those pagans sure love their dead people! Their… _flesh_. Both dead and alive.” Did she just lick Crane’s ear? “So do I.”

The scratchy wool gloves slip under Crane’s top, and Joker drags her nails up Crane’s stomach. Crane makes a noise of surprise, slow to react, because this can’t be happening, it can’t. It’s not _logical_. Even though Joker’s pinching her nipple through her bra, painfully, and her voice is hot at Crane’s ear, panting, “Are just going to _sit_ there like a sack of straw, Scary? Or are you gonna _take_ it like a man?”

She bites into the thick muscle of Crane’s shoulder – a real bite like the type you take out of a particularly tough steak; no love bites for Joker – and that jolts Crane back into reality enough to struggle. She flails, her arms windmilling, but Joker’s got her thighs jammed between the table and Joker’s hips, and the only time she makes contact is when she smacks Joker in the jaw with the back of her head. The woman behind her grunts in pain, then pinches the pressure points at the base of her neck. Crane’s vision flickers for a moment, and she goes limp; she hears the scrape of fabric as Joker does something – takes something off. Her tie. Just as Crane shakes off the pain (she’d been incapacitated for all of five seconds but that was apparently enough), Joker whips the green strip of fabric over her head and gags her, rubbing Crane’s cracked lips into bleeding; she can taste it on the tie as it scrapes over her teeth and tongue. She coughs and thrashes, because the more she does the harder Joker laughs, a weird, high-pitched giggle, and she loves the way it sounds even though it absolutely terrifies her.

“This won’t work,” Joker says conversationally. “I like it when you _scream._ ” She rips the gag out of Crane’s mouth and wraps it around her neck, pressing between her shoulder blades and shoving her facedown on the table. Crane’s eyes prickle with tears as the sharp, toxic scent of chemicals permeates the air; it’s intoxicating, like adrenaline, like the dizzy sensation she gets when her air supply’s cut off, like going headfirst down a slide. Her vision is fuzzy and her brain doesn’t seem to be working, but every other sensation is magnified and intense: cold steel under her cheek, the grunting laughter behind her, the scent of smoke in the air. Joker is leaving wounds on the pale skin of her thighs, slipping her fingers under the elastic of her no-nonsense underwear. She is making the most ridiculous noises, whimpers and half-formed words full of vowels and pleading promises, rough and barely coherent. Joker is telling her what a stupid little girl she is, everyone at home was _right_ about her, she has amounted to nothing, she is nothing, nothing but a slut wet for a murderous clown on a lab table, and _ooh_ it’s purr-fect when she _cries_.

She comes with a shout, tearing at her throat, and her legs buckle and Joker kicks her in the side while she’s down. She lashes out and smacks the clown in the knee, and Joker falls, hysterical with laughter.

“How dare you?” Crane spits when she is coherent again, although her voice is raw. She’ll have bruises along her throat later. She grasps for control – can’t find it, her hands are shaking, her experiments are spilled and hissing across the table – and she smells smoke. The scent of fabric burning. Joker is stacking gallons of chemicals around the singed couch, pushed up against the stove. Chemicals. Flammable chemicals. Crane shuts her eyes for a moment, wearily; someday, just once, she’d like to be the winner in their little struggles for control.

“You know,” Joker says cheerfully, “you might want to leave, before this whole place goes up in smoke.” She eyes Crane from across the room. Her gaze glitters, reflecting the fire. “Or you could… _stay_. Everything burns. Especially straw.”


End file.
